


Nothing is Everything

by voids



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Illustrated, Low Chaos Daud, M/M, Post-Low Chaos Ending, Rating and characters may change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 09:13:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6111859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voids/pseuds/voids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if unexpected events turned The Outsider into a human? How would he be? How would he act? And most importantly: what would he feel?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing is Everything

**Author's Note:**

> This begun as small Daudsider ficlets that I sent to fowo's tumblr askbox on anon in which I approached the idea of The Outsider turning into a human and falling in love with Daud. This fic is the story that arose from it.
> 
> Thankyou, fowo, for the editing! It definitely makes things a lot easier this way.
> 
> Update: I started working on illustrations for this fic. So expect each chapter to include at least one illustration.
> 
> Update 2: [Fic cover](http://dauded.tumblr.com/post/142125813261/nothing-is-everything-by-voids-chapters-1)

He shivers at the cold water clogging his pale form up to his naked armpits. Wrong. This is so wrong. It's making him feel nauseous and for someone without the ability to feel it's pretty ironic. He moves, trying to escape the overwhelming sensation, but the more he does the more water seems to appear in front of him. Dark water, remains of dirt and pieces of seaweed get to touch him. He doesn't remember the last time he had been touched by something; everything in the Void is smoke and songs and the rest is meaningless. He gasps when something curls around his ankle, scared. He's on the edge of hyperventilating when he tries to escape the cold water by floating in the air, like he's always done, but failing at the intent.

He tries to calm down as a foreign instinct obliges him to cover his chest with his arms and rub both hands against the bare skin of his biceps, seeking for comfort, to escape the shivering that has overcome his body.

 _His_ body.

The Outsider notices water droplets dripping from his pale cheeks, but what scares the guts out of him is that he can feel them. They're like tiny icy pieces of glass, slowly making their way down his jaw and falling into the water with an inaudible "plop.” The water is like a mirror of his misery, showing him his horrible outcome. The Outsider stares blankly at his own reflection, momentarily forgetful about the cold, to focus on the brownish eyes looking back at him. Some used to tell him he had starlight eyes, black as the shadow of the night. Vera had praised them more than once. Even Daud had always had a way to name him using an irritated remark about his eyes. They were dark, shallow, nothing like the ones reflected on the water below him. These looked almost... human.

 

                                                   

 

The Outsider shakes his head, moving helplessly throughout the water and gritting his teeth. He can hear them clattering against the cold. One maddening thought tells him to cry for help. Considering it, he takes a moment to look around: the environment is full of buildings, but most of them have crumbled down, and there's a stinging quietness which makes him wonder if anybody would actually hear him, might he scream. But The Outsider recognizes this place, and, unless it's a ruthless weeper or a swollen corpse floating on the water nearby, he's absolutely sure none will come to his attention at will.

The Flooded District has never been a merciful place. He doesn't think it will be any different now.

Even after Lady Emily had been crowned Empress at the age of ten, things hadn't changed much in the Flooded District. The Whalers had long retired, sought for another hideout, and Daud had left Dunwall weeks ago, but the stench of blood and rotten flesh was still present there. He thinks of Daud; The Outsider had given up on caring about the ex assassin once he had stopped Delilah Copperspoon from possessing Emily Kaldwin's soul. And he had learnt that Daud wouldn't be an exception, that the man would try to spend the rest of his life forgetting about the Void and everything that made him regret the horrible choices he made in the past.

Even though Daud was still present in this damned city, the mere thought of asking for his help turned The Outsider's stomach upside down. He knew the man had a feverish aversion towards him. Having turned into a... human wouldn't make a difference at all.

The Outsider pauses, looking at his hands, and considering for a minute. Yes. He isn't wrong. He is a human, now.

But how? Why?

He looks around across the water for something to lay himself atop on, realizing how purple some of his skin is turning. He wonders if it's the cold water that's causing it. He remembers having seen people drowning into the Tyvian sea, their faces developing a shade of white and purple as they got closer and closer to their inevitable end. It's ironic how he once hadn't felt a single bit of pity for them, yet he couldn't help but empathize now. He fears the same will happen to him soon, and the idea is almost tempting.

Maybe it would the best for him, really, to allow death embrace him fairly like the mortal he has turned into.

He thinks of the hagfish and the river krusts. Would he make it alive if he swam to the nearest ledge without having suffered a bite or a poisonous spit? Or better: which would kill him faster, these savage creatures or the hypothermia that was already close to win?

And most importantly, if he got to make it alive, the rats would be still there, all sharp teeth and plague, and he also needed to find some clothes. Very quickly.

Something catches his eye before he can act, though. It drifts near enough for him to spot a considerable amount of blue liquid still present inside a vial of Piero's Spiritual Remedy, forgotten by Void knows who, and The Outsider feels something adrift to sadness, although as inexperienced as he is when it comes to human emotions and feelings, he can't tell. Whoever had used the Remedy, had either thrown the vial away or had died before consuming the whole of it. He wonders if it had been someone marked by him who had had the vial in their possession, now lost. For some reason, The Outsider thinks of Corvo. If things had gone accordingly, Corvo should currently remain in Dunwall Tower, being Emily's father and acting as such while he also professes as her bodyguard; but now, this human form no longer allows The Outsider to watch over in regards to the Lord Protector or to anyone in particular. It's baffling and uncomfortable and it makes him feel incredibly useless.

The Outsider studies the mass of water for a few seconds, takes a deep gulp of air, and, making sure he's not being lurked by danger of any kind, dives into the water. He will swim past the first walls of crumbled stone and bricks, to the entrance of the first apartment he finds. It will be a safe place, at least, until he has recovered from the purple dots that have popped over his skin and is feeling ready to seek for a better hideout. It will take a while to reach Rudshore Gate safely, and he knows that The Hound Pits Pub is always willing to offer a comfortable bed to whoever needs it the most.

It is laughable, really, to think that someone who had spent thousands of centuries resting in the depths of the Void itself, someone who had been known as the powerful and mythical leviathan, equally feared, loathed and worshipped by a countless number of different civilizations around the world, is now nothing but a vulnerable, fragile human being helplessly trapped in a chaotic place. Inexperienced as he is regarding to the real life while trying to survive in one way or another.

His body has become stiff, but dying in the cold dark water seems a less attractive idea to The Outsider now, much less when he almost collides against the floating corpse of a weeper, pale and bitten by the rats, with their eyes still very bloodied. It makes him react by hitting his hands and feet against the water and scream in disgust and horror, his voice echoing all around the place. Had he been anywhere else, he would have awakened the sleepiest of the hounds, but the quietness is as deafening as before, filled only with his splashes and screams.

He avoids the cadaver as he can, though, and keeps swimming with a force he didn't know he possessed, being all flat muscles and bony shapes. He's almost reached his goal when he spots a hagfish swimming nearby. His heart is thrumming desperately and he's breathlessly shaking his arms and legs awkwardly to keep moving forward to his destination as fast as he's able to. As he does so, The Outsider notices by the corner of his right eye the glimpse of a shadow standing above a rooftop, and for half a second, the hairs of his neck stand up, anxious at the sensation of possibly being watched. But by whom?

He screams again when something bites his ankle. It's painful and it burns and it's spreading throughout the length of his leg. He shakes it to push the monstrous fish away, but its sharp teeth are well seated against his skin in a feral grip, and he's worried it might tear the bone apart. He tries to muffle a sob as tears prickle behind his eyes, and if they ever fall down, they are camouflaged by the water. Void, he had watched so many kinds of horrible deaths from up there, so many people dying, so many people losing their loved ones; wives burying their husbands; mothers feeding their children with remains of food picked up from the alleys or the trash cans, only to watch them die in their arms a few days later; he had seen people jumping into the Wrenhaven river with only one simple purpose in mind. And he had never ever felt the tiniest bit of empathy for them. As much as he wished to return to his mythical form, The Outsider let regret and guilt overflow him. Now he understood, crudely. In his previous situation he would have never known what it is to have your skin pierced, the impotence at realizing that there's nothing you can do, only wait as death eats you out terrifyingly slow. The water from where he is squirming and shaking has started to get dyed by his own blood, so red and crimson The Outsider can hardly believe it's coming out of his own veins, which are being torn up one by one each in second that passes by.

Maybe this kind of world is not for him, The Outsider thinks; perhaps it was a mistake, to try to look for a chance of survival. He should have drowned himself when he could, for it would have been less painful than being ripped apart by a hagfish. Maybe he should just close his eyes, and give up.

He does so, and then, there's the distant sound of a gunshot colliding the surface of the water, followed by the wielding of a knife. The Outsider has long stopped caring. He's already accepted the gift of death, and he's awaiting it with calculated patience. It doesn't change anything when the teeth let go of his leg, or when someone is pulling him out of the cold water and fresh air hits his skin, neither when he's just being wrapped tightly into something that reminds him vaguely of a cocoon. He screams in agony when his mauled ankle rubs against a rough texture. But there are strong hands taking hold of it, gently. And though he wants to open his eyes and to find out about his unexpected rescuer, he fails to accomplish that. Whoever is taking their time to help out a worthless creature as him doesn't deserve half the gratitude he would be willing to give, because he doesn't deserve the chance to live, even though, for a moment, he would have liked to have it.

He faints not a minute later. And he believes he's heard someone calling his name. But it's already too late.


End file.
